Thursday, May 8, 2008

Linoleum Shangri-La



David Cauldon's blog has some great old excerpts from The American Home magazine that reveals Flint was breaking new ground in home decorating and the fashionable use of linoleum in 1940:

"Inside, the living room, separate dining room, kitchen, and breakfast room are smoothly planned on the ground floor....The vestibule and clothes closet are conveniences lacking in many small homes. You step up to the bedroom quarters on the left side of the house where two nice room, three closets, and a tiled bath are arranged in slick order.

"Both the living and dining rooms have lemon yellow walls, white woodwork, chartreuse draperies, and blonde carpeting. The long fireplace wall of knotty pine paneling with built-in bookshelves is an effective foil for Victorian antique furniture, and in the dining room an old Welsh cupboard and drop-leaf table are space savers. Colonial wallpapers in the bedrooms are in keeping with the reproductions of old furniture, crocheted bedspreads, and net curtains. Cross ventilation and full-length closet mirrors are practical features. The modern kitchen is up to snuff with isw electric equipment, painted white walls, dark blue linoleum, chrome trim, built-in cupboards lined with blue, and the red and white curtains. There are windows on three sides of the blue leather chairs and red-topped table in the breakfast alcove.

"A fully excavated basement, including a recreation room, laundry, and fruit cupboards is at the foot of the cellar stairway while the dining room's French doors lead to a terraced lawn and rock garden beyond the small flag-stoned terrace."

The house price is listed as $7,200 in 1940, which just might be what you'd pay for it today, if it's still standing.




1 comment:

  1. Wow, nice shot. It looks a lot like the aged, abandoned version of the house in the post above it from 1940.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.